1937 Zephyr coupe

[Wensum Valley Rods]

Finally got the boot floor welded in tonight. The panel that I fabricated the day before yesterday was a pretty much exact replica of the original, but when I tried the spare wheel on the carrier before I final welded the panel in the deck lid sat proud of the body by about 4". The only thing I can think of is the carrier I have is a sedan one and the coupe ones are a different profile.
I spent all day bashing and wheeling the floor pan that I made yesterday altering it so that the spare wheel carrier could lay further into the floor allowing the deck lid to close without hitting the spare wheel.
That's the floor completely welded in now, with just a few welds to be cleaned up before I can get it into primer.
Strange that I actually finished welding tonight the very first bits that I made for it several months ago.

Paul.

 

[Juggler]

Do you never sleep?

Looking good sir

As soon as I get the pickup done I'll come and give you a look - I'm at the other end of the A146!

 

[VeryTangled]

Paul, I tip my hat to you. I am enjoying your build thread quite a bit. And you've started with a very desirable and sexy car.

Do you have any shots of how you go about crafting some of these pieces or some of your tools/machines?

The fender wall pieces and the floor pans have some amazing contours and I assume they started as sheet material. I have a hard time picturing the amount of patience and re-fitting it must take to end up with work that looks so nice in these photos. Regarding the pieces from your 11/23 post, I can picture you having to fit those pieces about two dozen times before it would have been satisfactory.

I'll be one of the people waiting for more reports.

-VeryTangled/Jeff

 

[Wensum Valley Rods]

Hey Juggler, nope haven't slept much since I bought the Zephyr
Your welcome round anytime fella, just give us a holla.

Jeff, I will post up some in progress shots of the fabricated panels. I have made all the floors,rockers and panels from 18swg flat mild steel. Although I am a fabricator by trade I have never done anything like this at work. This is the first time I have really made up panels to the level of the boot floor/spare wheel well.
The tools I use are mainly a hollowed out piece of timber around 9"x3", a mallet and a couple pf hammers , a piece of old train line as an anvil, and a very crude home made wheeling machine. I also have on loan a hand swager/bead roller and a good set of 4' box and pan folders.
I think the best tool is having the vision to be able to see what the end result should be and how to get there.
The panels in the rear inner fenders that you talk of were probably the easiest to make and really didn't take that long. The curved parts took about 2 hours a piece to make and tack weld in. The boot floor on the other hand took 4 hours the first time and then almost all day altering it as the spare wheel carrier was wrong. That had more trial fittings than I care to remember.
I will take some pics of the tools and post them when I get in from the workshop tomorrow evening.

Paul,

 

[Ol' Ron]

OOOHH! I gots see this when it's finished. I had a 39 Lincoln Coupe with a 85 in it.

 

[3738]

It will look similar to this pretty soon....

 

[Walt Dupont--Me.]

Man, that's some beautifull work. Very few of those kind of people around. I wish I was smart enough to do something. Walt

 

[Wensum Valley Rods]

Hey Ron, this has been a pipe dream of mine to own a zephyr coupe, never thought it would happen though. I'm a happy man, even if I have a little work to do .

That black zephyr is gorgeous , you can't not love these cars.

Hey Walt, thanks for the praise, much appreciated. Don't be frightened to have a go, it's no where near as difficult as you may think. I'm nobody special, I've had no training for this . It's just that the parts are not available here and if they were they would be at a huge cost. I will have a go at anything to see if I can do it before I resort to parting with large amounts of money.

Jeff as promised here are the pics of the tools that I used to make every new panel that you see on the zephyr. As you can see they are nothing special. The swager , shrinker/stretcher and the english wheel (forgot to take pics of that , sorry), and the occasional fold in the folders are the only machines I used, the rest are all hand tools, several home made.
The flipper/paddle is made from an old leaf spring, the anvil is an old offcut from a train line,the hammers are just some old ones that I have collected along the way,the dishing hollow was just sanded from a piece of 9"x3" timber, and a few dolly's.
I would have been better using some nylon or wooden bossing mallets instead of the ball pein hammer, but I haven't got any yet.
For the boot floor/wheel well I cut a panel slightly larger than the original and basically beat the rough shape out in the dishing hollow with the large hammer, and then wheeled the dents smooth on the wheeling machine. I rolled the curves in the panel over an old gas cylinder, and beat out any raised or dished profiles that were needed. The swages were done on the swager/bead roller.

Paul.

 

[3738]

Paul,

Excellent work.

I also have a section of railroad track I use as an anvil.

I was driving by a crew replacing rails, asked if I could have a couple short sections they had laying there and got one for me, my dad and a friend.

 

[Woodie1]

You've done a great job so far. I do wonder though how you roll beads in the middle of the panels with the rollers on the outside of steel boxing.

 

[VeryTangled]

Dude, you must put Ringo Starr to shame!

These are beautiful cars. I think this one is a '40.

-VeryTangled/Jeff

 

[Wensum Valley Rods]

Hey Woodie1 I see where you are coming from with the bead roller comment. The picture is not clear, but there is a slot from the work piece which is almost the full width of the machine.
It will allow around 19" or 500mm of depth for the beads, but because the slot is only around 1 1/2" in height it means that the bits have to be done in almost a flat profile and then curved if needed. This is ok unless it's a tight curve as it then flattens out or kinks the beads.

I got the floors in zinc primer tonight, looking much better and when the seam sealer arrives I can get it all sealed in ready for final paint.
The paint is the orange colour in the pics, but shows a brown colour in the ones taken with no flash. I kind of like the colour of them.
The paint also looks a bit thin on the ground in some of the pics, they are just dull patches as it was starting to dry.

Paul

 

[Vic Piano]

Dude, you must put Ringo Starr to shame!

These are beautiful cars. I think this one is a '40.

-VeryTangled/Jeff

Jeff, that's a '41 LZ, a real beauty. I love Zephyr's.

 

[Robert Dip]

Paul, love your work and great skills. Brings back memories when I re-did the entire floor of my old ’34. Sheet metal replacement floors did not exist back then, and I patiently made every detail contour exactly like the original. Not being a ‘real’ metalman, it took me quite a while to do this. Over the years, I found that using cold roll sheets in the 18 & 16 gauge worked much better for me. Since the ribs on a ’34 are flat in the middle, I used ¼” aluminium plate and machined the indents, then proceeded to hammer the shape with a steel flat bar that matched the size. I found that the metal retained its shape better than the hot roll. After tacking, I welded the seams using a tig welder, mostly fusing the joints together, very little warping in the process. Turned out great, but you must surely think that I went through a lot more trouble than needed….but that’s me. Just would like your comments on using cold roll sheet as compared to the regular hot roll. Thanks for sharing your project…Robert

 

[Ghost of elmirage]

LOVE Zephyr coupes pretty ladies

 

[41ford1]

Subscribed.

That is some fine work you are doing. The end result will be awesome!

 

[Big_Guys_baby]

subscribed!

 

[Wensum Valley Rods]

Hey Robert, that is some very nice work that you did on the floor pans. I don't think it's more trouble than needed at all. The end result looks as good as the day it left the factory and if that was your aim then it was worth all the work.
I have done some pretty tidy work on the zephyr, but I know if I had taken more time I could have done it better. Thing is I would never had been able to make the zephyr original looking again in any kind of reasonable time and I want to get it on the road and use it . Because it was pretty much a rusted wreck when I got it and wasn't actually a coupe I reckoned I could get away with building what I wanted out of it. So the end result should resemble a zephyr coupe but with a slight lowering job with a traditional stance and a few subtle changes here and there.

As for my thoughts on the cold rolled versus hot rolled sheet, All I can say is there are several different grades of steel all classed pretty much the same. We make ventilation ducting at work and the difference in steel quality and workability is amazing. Some is really malleable and soft, some is really hard and starts to kink when rolled, and some is quite springy and wont hold shape very well. All are sold as the same type just different suppliers and prices. The stuff I have used on the zephyr is bright rolled (cold rolled) as apposed to the black rolled (hot rolled) mild steel. I think the tempers are changed in the annealing and cold rolling process so it's slightly better to use. I'm sure it can be bought in different tempers too, but don't quote me on that.

Paul.

 

[rotorwrench]

I imagine Zephyrs are hard enough to find let alone the 18 gauge AKDQ cold rolled sheet steel over in the UK. These items are difficult enough to find here in the USA. I'm with you about getting a car back on the road. We usually dream about the car until we get them and realize we need a lathe, then a milling machine, then a bead roller, then a power hammer, and on, and on, and on. It never stops and you can never have too many tools. I may never have more than a few cars by the time they cover me up with dirt but I'll sure have a lot of tools.

If you and yours stay at it, you will have a fine ride before too long.

 

[Wensum Valley Rods]

Still chipping away at it, got all the seams and any welding seam sealed to stop any future problems.

I have tackled the very bodgy repair on the front crossmember. The spring had forced it's way through at some point the same as the rear had, the repair consisted of several hefty lumps of steel bolted in place to hold the spring.
This ended up raising the front by at least an inch, time all the steel was in place. I have repaired the crossmember and raised the top an inch which should give me another inch drop .

I have also welded up some of the many holes in the firewall, several were original and had the pins in that held the sound proofing and some have been put in over the years by previous owners. Some were drilled right through the swage lines.

I also had to repair the mount that the steering box bolts to on the chassis, when I removed the box there was a crack in the mount, so I v'ed it out and welded it up again.

Paul